I "rediscovered" this article cleaning out my electronic closets and will
forward it to remind those who have seen it before about the real
consequences we face from the gun control movement and to introduce the
article to new arrivals at the e-groups and websites. -JRB-
************************************************************************
Please forward this to anyone, either private citizen or public official,
who is calling for more gun control.
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To whom it may concern:
The following article is a perspective on gun control which most people in
America fortunately haven’t yet experienced, although I am beginning to
fear that they soon will. May I respectfully suggest that, if you are
pro-gun control and complete disarmament that you immediately do following
- and have your entire family do likewise - to set an example for those of
us who still believe in the Second Amendment:
1) Clearly post your house and car and other property with large
signs/bumper stickers which proclaim "GUN-FREE ZONE" or "THIS PROPERTY IS
FREE OF GUNS."
2) Wear a button at all times which declares: "I AM DISARMED" or "GUN-FREE
PERSON."
If you are not willing to personally do the above, and to promote that
everyone who is against guns do likewise, then you are a hypocrite. After
all - if it's good enough for the schools to be forced to have and to
proclaim this totally disarmed status, it should be good enough for all
gun-control folks, who should be falling all over themselves to publicly
announce their disarmed status to the world at large.
Sincerely,
Tina Terry
hoohah@futureone.com
=================
HOW GUN CONTROL "WORKED" IN JAMAICA
by Tina Terry (c) 1998
(Published in THE FIREARMS SENTINEL, the quarterly publication of Jews for
the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) - P.O. Box 270143, Hartford,
Wisconsin, 53027 - phone: 414-673-9746; web site: http://www.jpfo.org)
Those who stridently and self-righteously lobby for the seizure of all guns
by the government in America, particularly women like Sarah Brady, Barbra
Streisand, Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Congresswoman
Carolyn McCarthy, would do well to study the results of forced disarmament
in other countries.
I have personally lived through a government-instigated disarmament of the
general public, and its subsequent, disastrous consequences: From 1961 to
1977 my father (who is a white American, as are my mother, sister and I)
was stationed with his family and business in Kingston, Jamaica.
Around 1972, the political situation in Jamaica had so seriously
deteriorated that there were constant shootings and gun battles throughout
the city of Kingston and in many of the outlying parishes (counties). In
years past no one had even had to lock their doors, but now many people
hardly dared venture out of their homes. This was especially true for white
people, and even more especially for Americans, because of the real risk of
being gunned down or kidnapped and held hostage by Jamaicans, who had
become increasingly hostile towards whites and foreigners. My father took
his life into his hands every morning simply driving to work. Going to the
market or to do a simple errand was often a terrifying prospect. The open
hatred and hostility which was directed at us seemed ready at any time to
explode into violence, and indeed did so towards many people on many
occasions, often with tragic or fatal results.
The Jamaican government decided that the only solution to this volatile
situation was to declare martial law overnight, and to demand that all guns
and bullets owned by anyone but the police and the military be turned into
the police within 24 hours. The government decreed that anyone caught with
even one bullet would be immediately, and without trial, incarcerated in
what was essentially a barbed-wire enclosed concentration camp which had
been speedily erected in the middle of Kingston. In true Orwellian fashion,
the government referred to this camp as "the gun court."
My father and all of our American, Canadian, British and European friends,
as well as middle class Jamaicans of all colors (locally referred to as
"black," 'white," or "beige") knew that we were all natural targets of this
kind of draconian government punishment. The relentless anti-American
propaganda spewed forth by Michael Manley, Jamaica's admittedly pro-Castro
Prime Minister, had resulted in the widespread hatred of Americans, British
and Europeans by many Jamaicans. Racial hatred of whites and "beiges," as
well as class hatred of anyone who appeared to have money or property, were
rampant.
Consequently, we all dutifully and immediately disarmed ourselves, and
handed our weapons in at the nearest police station. It was either that or
be sent straight to the gun court. Even after we had disarmed ourselves, we
lived in deathly fear that the cops, not known for their integrity, and
well-known for their hatred of whites and Americans, would plant a gun or
bullet on our property or persons.
So there we all were - government-disarmed, sitting-duck, law-abiding
citizens and expatriates. Anyone can guess what happened next: the rampant
and unfettered carnage began in earnest. Robberies, kidnappings, murders,
burglaries, rapes - all committed by the vast populace of still-armed
criminals. Doubtless the criminals were positively ecstatic that the
government had been so helpful in creating all these juicy and utterly
defenseless victims for their easy prey.
We've all heard the phrase, "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have
guns." I can personally confirm that this statement is absolutely and
painfully true, because that is exactly how the Jamaican disarmament
worked. At the time of the disarmament order, I was away at boarding school
in the United States. However, I remember vividly coming home for the
summer. I remember the muted but pervasive atmosphere of tension and terror
which constantly permeated our household, affecting even our loyal black
servants, who worked for and lived with us, and whom we took care of.
(Practically every household in Jamaica, except the very poorest, had
live-in servants. There was no welfare or public school in Jamaica, so
middle-class families became completely responsible for the well-being of
their servants, who were considered to be part of the family, including
taking them to the doctor, and helping to educate their children.)
I remember lying awake in bed at night, clutching the handle of an ice-pick
I had put under my pillow, and listening to the screaming of car-loads of
Jamaican gangs going by our house, praying that they wouldn't pick our home
to plunder. The favorite tactic was for a group of thugs to roar up to a
house, pile out, batter down the door and rape, steal, kill, kidnap...
whatever they felt like. They knew the inhabitants had been disarmed, and
that they would be met with only fear and defenselessness. My pathetic
ice-pick seemed incredibly puny, but it was all I could think of. Our
family didn't even own a baseball bat. I remember lying awake thinking
about how our beloved dogs were old and feeble, and that they could not
protect us. And that I could not protect them either.
I can barely describe the abject terror and helplessness I felt as both a
white American and as a young woman during that time. Jamaica was then
about 90% black. Although I was (and still am) an American citizen, my
family had lived in Kingston for almost 12 years when this situation
occurred, and I considered Jamaica to be my real home. Many of my friends
were Jamaican. My first serious boy-friend was Jamaican. For all its
faults, I loved this beautiful, suffering island dearly, and I felt like a
stranger when I was away at school in America, where I was always homesick
for Jamaica.
When we had first moved to Jamaica in 1960, my sister and I (both blonde
and obviously white) had been able to ride our horses up into the hills,
and, whenever we encountered local Jamaicans, their salutation to us was
open and friendly, as was ours to them. As things deteriorated into the
reign of terror, and then the government instituted overnight citizen
disarmament, when we ventured outside our home, we almost always
encountered hate-filled stares and hostile hisses of, "Eh, white bitch! Eh,
look 'ere, white bitch!" and other unprintable epithets.
Jamaica was, in the 1970's, a country with at least 50% illiteracy and an
illegitimacy rate of over 50%. If a Jamaican girl wasn't pregnant by the
age of 15 or 16, she was often derisively branded "a mule," since mules,
the offspring of horses and donkeys, are almost always sterile. Being a
woman, let alone a white woman, in such a climate, especially after the
disarmament of the citizenry by the government, was one of the most
terrifying experiences one can imagine.
At that time, I had never held or fired a gun. I had rarely ever even seen
a gun. No one in my family had ever learned about, used or even talked
about firearms, except my father, who had been in the U.S. army. In our
social circle, guns were deemed "unseemly" and "inappropriate" for polite
society, and especially for young ladies. I had never given much thought to
any of the Bill of Rights, let alone the Second Amendment. Yet we Americans
all knew the Bill of Rights did not protect us in Jamaica, just as it
hadn't applied to us at our previous station in Singapore.
My dad had fought in World War II, however, and had brought back a Luger
pistol, which he had taken with him to Jamaica when we moved there after
having spent 6 years in Singapore. No law had prevented his bringing a gun
to Jamaica in 1960. When my dad handed that pistol and all his bullets in
to the police, I vaguely realized that he was no longer allowed by the
government to protect my mom, my sister or me, or our household.
I was pretty confused at the time. Terrified of being kidnapped, raped,
murdered, robbed, at the same time I was still mindlessly anti-gun, because
the criminals all had guns, and the government had declared guns to be
contraband, and we were all terrified of being hurt by bad guys with guns,
all of which somehow meant that guns must be "dangerous" and "bad" and
therefore should be banned, just as the Jamaican government had decreed. As
white Americans, our status was that of permanent guests in a foreign and
increasingly hostile country. In fact, after 6 years in Singapore, and 12
in Jamaica, we well knew how to strive to be "model guests," which meant
that questioning or challenging the Jamaican government's authority was
unthinkable -- even when such government authority decreed that we be made
helpless. None of us had any illusions about any "rights" to defend
ourselves. We might have been able to do so with the government’s blessing
in the good old days, before chaos and violence and racial hatred had taken
over. But now it was different. Now we were white, visible, foreign,
sitting ducks in a hostile black sea. And I was a white, visible, foreign,
female sitting duck.
As obedient as I was to authority, I grasped that our household was
defenseless, and that I as a woman was particularly defenseless. And I
realized that, had my dad still had his pistol, I would have felt much
safer. I even realized that I would be willing to pick up a gun if my life
were threatened. For a person who claimed to be anti-gun, these feelings
really confused me.
At least eleven friends and acquaintances of my family were raped,
kidnapped, murdered or robbed within about a year after the disarmament,
and I believe it is a miracle that we are all still alive. I am convinced
that many of these people would not have been victims had they not been
disarmed by the Jamaican government. It was tragically ironic that the
government had sold this whole disarmament program to us with the promise
that: "We're here to help you, and this is for your own good and safety."
Because of this horrid and indelible experience, and of my interest in and
undying loyalty to the American Bill of Rights, I have made it my personal
business to study the history of the Second Amendment. I have studied
related topics, too, such as police responsibility to citizens. It is my
belief that many people believe that disarmament is no big deal, because it
is the job of the police to protect us. Particularly many women seem to
believe this. The media and of government authorities continue to generate
pervasive and corrosive propaganda aimed at creating a helpless and
disarmed populace. I used to completely believe this propaganda, but I have
learned the following realities:
1. The police have no legal duty to protect individual citizens, and cannot
be held responsible if they fail to do so. Even if a citizen's 911 call
gets through to the emergency center, the police can simply choose not to
show up, and the citizen has no legal recourse against the police. The
courts have repeatedly ruled on this. As the court wrote in Bowers v.
DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982): "There is no constitutional right to
be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It
is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such
predators but does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution. The
Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: it tells the state to let
the people alone; it does not require the federal government or the state
to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and
order." The U.S. Supreme Court, in South v. Maryland, __ U.S. ___, ruled in
a similar vein as far back as 1856.
2. The police carry guns primarily to defend THEMSELVES, not to protect us.
3. Because of items 1 and 2 above, we should all consider the police to be,
essentially, HISTORIANS. They show up AFTER the crime has been committed
and attempt to reconstruct and document the history of the crime. If the
history is satisfactorily re-constructed, then the perpetrator is
apprehended (if he can be found) and then (perhaps) prosecuted. This
after-the-fact law enforcement does little good for the dead or wounded
crime victims.
4. Women have a particular stake in preserving the right to bear arms.
There is no way to describe the helplessness a woman feels when she is
disarmed and made helpless by anyone. Add to that the rage she feels when
the agency who is disarming her and leaving her at the mercy of rapists,
murderers, goons and thugs, is a sanctimonious government telling her that
it's "for her own good."
Although there are many serious issues in today's roiling political and
social stew, I believe that preserving and restoring the Bill of Rights in
general, and the Second Amendment in particular, is the most pivotal and
basic issue to all Americans, and particularly female Americans, even if
they don't yet know it. The consummate idiocy propounded by some folks
(including some women) that the Second Amendment exists only to protect
sportsmen’s rights is particularly ridiculous relevant to women, most of
whom don’t hunt, and who care more about being able to get a decent
hand-gun for self-protection than a hunting rifle to pursue deer or elk.
Anyone who thinks the Bill of Rights is either "out of date," "hokey" or
"needs revising" - all of which I've heard from well-meaning but tragically
ignorant and complacent Americans - should try living in a country which
doesn't have one. I have been there and done that, and I don't want to go
through it ever again - especially not in my own native nation. So I am
dedicated to preventing today's government nanny from turning, as so often
has occurred in history, into tomorrow's government despot.
Finally, I implore anyone reading this, particularly women, to likewise
dedicate themselves to studying this issue carefully, and to likewise
taking an active stance to preserve the Bill of Rights in general and the
Second Amendment in particular.
Postscript: As of the latter part of August of this year (1998), it doesn’t
appear that the situation in Jamaica has changed much for the better. Many
Jamaicans of all colors have immigrated to America to start businesses and
to escape the hopelessness of the situation in their homeland. I recently
spoke with a black Jamaican named Marcus, who has opened a wonderful
Jamaican restaurant in Phoenix named "Likkle Montego," where I can go and
eat Jamaican food, and catch the latest news from my long-lost home. When
asked how things are today in Kingston, Marcus simply shook his head:
"Nottin’ change attahl, y’know. Everyt’ing still de same. Crime is still
bad, mon. Gov’ment still de same. T’ings dere is bad and terrible, mon. Bad
and terrible."
And guns are still outlawed in Jamaica. Armed criminals still terrorize
disarmed citizens, since still in Jamaica only outlaws (and the government)
have guns. Like the man said: Bad and terrible, mon. Bad and terrible.
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Please include the following republication information with any republishing:
Permission is given to republish this article, as long as none of it is
changed, shortened or altered, the author and JPFO are given full credit in
any such republishing, and this entire republishing message is included.
Author may be reached by writing to: Tina Terry c/o JPFO, POB 270143,
Hartford, WI, 53027.
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